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Sunday, February 23, 2003
Dacawi: Characters of the festival
By Ramon Dacawi
WHETHER we like it or not (or else), Panagbenga has been drawing us all together as one community. Since its inception in 1995, the flower festival has become the tie that binds. From the frenetic preparations to the execution of its month-long features, you get affected, involved. Worse, you get hooked and committed to do better next year. If not, you might escape and come back when traffic and all have normalized.
Every year, we have been doing it better, or trying to do it better, summoning our creativity to - to borrow the term still in vogue - sustain a growing tradition that we feel is uniquely ours. We project what is ours: the flowers that can only grow and bloom best in this temperate region of these tropical islands, our farm produce, handicraft and art, the ethnicity of our music and dance, the rhythm of our gongs so fittingly captured by Dean Mac Fronda's theme that follows the scenic contours of its mountainous landscape and which he composed as a tribute to us all Cordillerans.
This season of blooming is a village blooming with all the characters living out their roles to make the village complete, from the leaders, planners, implementors, observers, go-fors, on-lookers, peace-keepers and catch-me-if-you-can figures and dyed-in-the-wool or occasional resident critics, to the direct and regular, or even accidental, beneficiaries.
To reiterate the obvious, Panagbenga boosts not only our ego, our pride of place - to borrow the tourism line - but also our economy. It has kept the business cash registers ringing, the taxi meters ticking and commercial advertising vibrant. Panagbenga is, after all, perhaps the best advertising for Baguio ever conceived.
Yesterday, the centerpiece that makes the festival tick and lovely unfolded. Baguio has again relied on its greatest resource, the sure-fire crowd drawer that has kept the festival fire going for years - its children. Demonstrating the passion for excellence nurtured by their parents, teachers and barangays, they gave their best in the street dancing and drum and lyre competition.
It was a glorious day of achievement and fulfillment. Again, the children did us proud. Winners or losers, for sure they've vowed to do it better next year as they have already proven this year, given the meager resources that their parents and schools could provide.
Mainly because of the children, the cash registers have been
quite busy, business is in bloom. While advertising is good investment, the business community's support for the children's passion for excellence will surely be better - and less costly - investment.
Let every sector in the community bloom, including the tots who are Baguio's future. |
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